In a move that’s undoubtedly going to be used to justify more censorship, 42 state and U.S. territory attorneys general are urging Congress to mandate Surgeon General warnings on algorithm-driven social media platforms, aiming to combat the growing mental health crisis among America’s youth. The group, representing 39 states, the District of Columbia, American Samoa, and the U.S. Virgin Islands, sent a letter on September 9 to House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA), Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY), and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY.), calling for swift federal action to address the harmful impact of social media on young people.

The push follows U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy’s call in June for such labels, which would serve as a reminder that social media has not been proven safe for youth. Murthy pointed out that warning labels on products like tobacco have successfully raised awareness and changed behavior, suggesting similar potential benefits for social media platforms.

“We, the attorneys general of the 42 undersigned states, write in support of the United States Surgeon General’s recent call,” the letter stated. “Young people are facing a mental health crisis, which is fueled in large part by social media.” (and not vapid millennial parents who have no idea what they’re doing)

The attorneys general cited research linking social media use to increased rates of depression, anxiety, and suicidal thoughts among adolescents. They pointed to studies showing how these platforms disrupt sleep, foster body dissatisfaction, and promote self-harm, creating a compelling case for greater oversight.

While several states have already taken steps to address the issue—such as Tennessee’s Protecting Children from Social Media Act, which requires parental consent for minors to create social media accounts, and California’s law mandating platforms to assess and mitigate harms to children—the attorneys general argue that state-level efforts are not sufficient. They call for a unified federal approach to establish a consistent standard nationwide.

The letter highlights that 41 states and the District of Columbia have already filed lawsuits against Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, for allegedly encouraging harmful levels of platform engagement among young users. Other states, including Arkansas, Indiana, and Iowa, have initiated legal actions against TikTok for violating consumer protection laws. Despite these efforts, the attorneys general emphasize that a broader federal mandate is essential for comprehensive protection.

While acknowledging that a Surgeon General warning label would not solve the problem, the attorneys general believe it would be a critical step in mitigating risks to youth. They argue that the labels would raise public awareness, encourage more research, and spur additional regulatory oversight of social media companies.

The letter also references recent legislative actions like the passage of the Kids Online Safety Act and the Children and Teens’ Online Privacy Protection Act as evidence of Congress’s willingness to tackle the issue.

The attorneys general who signed the letter represent a diverse array of states, including Alabama, California, Florida, Michigan, New York, Texas, and Virginia, among others. However, some states, such as Iowa and Nebraska, while cited as examples of states that have implemented policies to protect children from the harms of social media, were not signatories on the letter.

The coalition closed their plea by stressing the urgent need for federal action, reinforcing the bipartisan nature of their concern for the mental well-being of America’s youth.

Elon Musk announced on Thursday that social media platform X will sue ‘perpetrators and collaborators’ who have colluded to control online speech, as revealed on Wednesday by an interim staff report released by the House Judiciary Committee.

“Having seen the evidence unearthed today by Congress, 𝕏 has no choice but to file suit against the perpetrators and collaborators in the advertising boycott racket,” Musk wrote on his platform, adding “Hopefully, some states will consider criminal prosecution.”

Having seen the evidence unearthed today by Congress, 𝕏 has no choice but to file suit against the perpetrators and collaborators in the advertising boycott racket.

Hopefully, some states will consider criminal prosecution. https://t.co/5W4yf1wxVO

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 11, 2024

The House report details a coordinated effort by the World Federation of Advertisers (WFA) and its Global Alliance for Responsible Media (GARM) initiative to demonetize and suppress disfavored content across the internet.

As we noted on Wednesday, the WFA is a global association representing over 150 of the world’s biggest brands and over 60 national advertiser associations which created GARM in 2019.

This alliance quickly amassed significant market power, representing roughly 90% of global advertising spend, which amounts to nearly one trillion dollars annually.

GARM’s Steer Team reads like a who’s who of corporate America, including heavyweights such as Unilever, Mars, Diageo, Procter & Gamble (P&G), GroupM, AB InBev, L’Oréal, Nestlé, IBM, Mastercard, and PepsiCo. These corporations not only wield immense economic influence but are now revealed to be leveraging this power to control online discourse under the guise of “brand safety.”

GARM members colluded to cut Twitter’s revenue after Elon Musk’s acquisition.

As early as November of 2022, Danish energy company and GARM member Ørsted, contacted GARM to discuss “the Twitter situation” and “a possible boycott.” pic.twitter.com/Ekkv2ULuzz

— House Judiciary GOP (@JudiciaryGOP) July 10, 2024

Collusion and Censorship

The Committee report details multiple instances of GARM’s coordinated efforts to influence and censor online content. Perhaps the most notable example is the recommendation for a boycott of Twitter following Elon Musk’s acquisition. GARM members, including Danish energy company Ørsted, were advised to pull their advertising from Twitter, a move that significantly impacted Twitter’s revenue. Internal emails show GARM’s satisfaction with the result, with GARM leader Rob Rakowitz boasting about the impact on Twitter’s financials.

“GARM recommended that its members ‘stop all paid advertisement’ on Twitter in response to Mr. Musk’s acquisition of the company. GARM’s internal documents show that GARM was asked by a member to ‘arrange a meeting and hear more about [GARM’s] perspectives about the Twitter situation and a possible boycott from many companies.” -House Judiciary Committee

And now, Musk is going to sue. Though he may want to quit GARM first.

Musk’s X rejoined GARM this month — the same coalition at the heart of @JudiciaryGOP’s report on alleged censorship that Musk is responding to here: https://t.co/EjCq9PBHUI pic.twitter.com/KjPCvPhhej

— Gabe Kaminsky (@gekaminsky) July 11, 2024

Authored by James Hickman via SchiffSovereign.com,

[Editor’s note: This letter was written by Schiff Sovereign’s CEO, Viktorija Simulynaite, who is on the ground in El Salvador.]

The first thing my driver said to me after I got off the plane in El Salvador was, “Welcome to my country. It’s very safe here now.”

I chuckled to myself because this seemed like such an odd greeting. But the more time I spent mingling with locals in El Salvador, the more it made sense.

The transformation that has taken place in the country over the past five years cannot be overstated.

Five years ago El Salvador had one of the highest murder rates in the world. It was basically a war zone. Gangs such as MS-13 and Barrio 18 were far more powerful than the government, and they enforced their own laws in their respective territories, sort of like the Taliban in Afghanistan.

The country’s young president, Nayib Bukele, put an end to all that when he was elected in 2019.

Bukele invoked emergency powers and arrested more than 100,000 suspected gang members, then shipped them off to a special prison far away from the rest of society. In a country of 6.3 million, that amounts to over 1.5% of the entire population that’s now locked up.

It was a controversial move to say the least… and I wonder about innocent people who may have been wrongfully imprisoned.

But El Salvadorans seem quite happy with the results; today their country boasts a lower homicide rate than anywhere else in the Western Hemisphere aside from Canada.

Simultaneously, El Salvador also put itself on the map by being one of the first countries in the world to get behind crypto; they even made Bitcoin legal tender and passed a number of pro-crypto tax incentives.

Those are pretty much the two things that El Salvador is known for these days– putting tens of thousands of criminals in jail, and Bitcoin.

But I was pleasantly surprised to find out that the country has so much more going for it.

This was a place that was scraping the bottom of the barrel just a few years ago. Even aside from the crime problem, the economy was in the dumps. Corruption and bureaucracy ruled the day, and debts were rising.

In just a few short years, however, El Salvador has managed to turn itself around, and the economy has taken off.

It’s not an accident. The government has slashed bureaucracy and established a number of incentives to bring in foreign capital and businesses.

One is the recently passed International Services Law, which offers significant tax incentives to service-based businesses, similar to Puerto Rico’s famous Act 60.

El Salvador’s law, though, is perhaps even more generous than Puerto Rico’s because it includes exemption for import duties, income taxes, municipal taxes, and more.

Service industries like call centers, data centers, software development, and other back-office services are starting to be growing industries in El Salvador, and I met a number of foreign entrepreneurs who are starting businesses in the capital.

Foreign investment is flowing in, and you can see construction projects everywhere– the capital city is quickly becoming sleek and modern, and it completely defied my expectations. Even the restaurant scene is really great.

More importantly, there’s an optimism in El Salvador– one that I haven’t seen in Europe and North America for a long time. People feel like the worst days are over and the future will continue to be much brighter.

Now, all that said, I’m not trying to suggest that El Salvador is some perfect paradise or that anyone should move their business there. I’m really writing about it as a sort of case study.

We talk a lot about how governments and politicians and “inspired idiots” wreck their economies.

They rack up massive debts and engineer painful inflation and higher energy prices… and generally make things worse with their every move.

But it’s fair to point out that sometimes governments do smart things. And El Salvador is a great example.

They knew they had to figure out how to turn their economy around. And rather than go down a destructive rabbit hole of wage and price controls, which are standard approaches for bankrupt nations, El Salvador’s government got out of the way and is allowing the free market to blossom.

The one thing they have done very deliberately is market themselves.

Advanced western countries don’t do this.

Joe Biden doesn’t travel the world pushing foreign nations to invest in America. Rather, he takes America’s standing for granted and simply assumes that everyone wants to invest there.

El Salvador is a tiny country plagued by a bad reputation for its past challenges.

But rather than let that reputation fester, its leaders are hustling to promote their country all over the world with a clear message: El Salvador is open for business.

It’s fascinating to watch such a positive transformation unfold for an entire nation in real time– and to see politicians deliberately do the right things to foster economic growth.

Given how many Western countries are rapidly deteriorating from their own idiotic political decisions, El Salvador is an obvious example of how much better things could be if reason and sanity were restored in government.

Imagine what the US would look like if politicians were actually cooperating and hustling to bring in new business, to make smart investments, to embrace capitalism, or even to simply rein in spending and slash bureaucratic waste…

We’re planning a boots on the ground trip to El Salvador for members of our Total Access group (i.e. our highest tier premium members at Schiff Sovereign). It’s going to be pretty great.

We’ll be meeting with senior officials and business leaders and checking out, firsthand, what’s going on in the country so that our members can see the transformation for themselves.

We’ll also eat at some of the country’s nicest restaurants and tour the beautiful countryside. And we might even leave with an investment or two.

(We’ve already had Total Access trips to places like Cuba, Singapore, the Republic of Georgia, Uzbekistan, and more, so El Salvador fits perfectly.)

Authored by Jonathan Turley,

The debate last night was chilling for many citizens as President Joe Biden clearly struggled to stay focused and responsive. It appeared to put on display what Special Counsel Robert Hur saw in his interview before concluding that Biden’s loss of mental capacity would make a prosecution difficult.

What may be equally troubling for Democrats and the media is a poll that came out just before the debate that shows more swing-state voters see former President Donald Trump rather than President Joe Biden as protecting democracy.

According to a new poll from the Washington Post and the Schar School of Policy and Government at George Mason University, if “democracy is on the ballot,” the majority of the public believes that threat comes from elsewhere, including possibly Biden himself.

Over half of the respondents told the Washington Post that threats to democracy are extremely important to their vote for president.

However, 44% said they think Trump would do a better job at handling those threats. Only 33% of respondents said they believe Biden would be better for democracy.

Many citizens are alarmed by prosecutions like the one in Manhattan where the legal system seems to have been weaponized against political opponents.

The poll not only shows the diminishing faith in the President but also in the press. The media has been unrelenting in pushing the narrative that this election is a choice between democracy and tyranny. The public is clearly tuning out the media message. This is only the latest example of that widening gap. Indeed, the whole “Let’s Go Brandon” chant is as much a criticism of the media as it is President Biden.

I have previously written that democracy is not on the ballot but free speech is. The Biden Administration has chilling analogies to the Adams Administration in the weaponization of the legal system and the crackdown on free speech. What should most concern Biden is the possibility of another aspect of history repeating itself: a defeat like the one in 1800.

As I discuss in my new book, The Indispensable Right, President John Adams, used the Alien and Sedition Acts to arrest his political opponents – including journalists, members of Congress and others. Many of those prosecuted by the Adams administration were Jeffersonians. In the election of 1800, Thomas Jefferson ran on the issue and defeated Adams.

The anti-free speech movement has flourished largely in the echo chambers of academia and the media.

It is time for the public to render its judgment. Free speech is again on the ballot. It is time for the public to decide.

Conservative commentator and filmmaker Robby Starbuck conducted an intensive three-week investigation into Tractor Supply, revealing and sharing on X how the US retailer, known for selling farm goods to rural Americans (mainly freedom-loving Republicans), has been donating to woke radical leftist causes that do not resonate with its customer base. The retailer, in response, abruptly scrapped its climate targets and diversity, equity, and inclusion fantasies late Thursday, preventing itself from getting ‘Bud Light’d’ by its customer base.

Tractor Supply gave $100,000 to an activist group that “worked around the clock” to stop deportations during the Trump presidency.

The group is Conexion Americas’. Their founder also previously headed the National Council of La Raza which got $2+ Million from George Soros.

How… pic.twitter.com/vtr2a2HbfP

— Robby Starbuck (@robbystarbuck) June 26, 2024

“We have heard from customers that we have disappointed them. We have taken this feedback to heart,” Tractor Supply wrote in a statement posted on X. 

From now on, the retailer claims it will retire its woke activism by nuking its DEI objectives and, instead, focus on actual and legitimate causes such as “ag education, animal welfare, veteran causes and being a good neighbor…” 

No longer submit data to the Human Rights Campaign.

Refocus our Team Member Engagement Groups on mentoring, networking and supporting the business.

Further focus on rural America priorities including ag education, animal welfare, veteran causes and being a good neighbor and stop sponsoring nonbusiness activities like Pride festivals and voting campaigns.

We will review and consider revising our current DEI goals while still ensuring a respectful environment.

Withdraw our data on emissions and focus on our land and water conservation efforts.

Statement from Tractor Supply pic.twitter.com/ZMweR8JVuy

— Tractor Supply (@TractorSupply) June 27, 2024

Following the Tractor Supply statement, Starbuck wrote on X, “This is a massive victory for sanity and the single biggest boycott win of our lifetime.”

He continued, “I want to give a special thanks to all of my monthly subscribers on @X . You fund our research, films and reporting. We couldn’t do it without you. If you’re not subscribed but see the value in our work, go click subscribe on my X page to join the team so we can restore sanity together.” 

After 3 weeks of researching and reporting on @TractorSupply going woke, they responded with the most dramatic policy reversal I’ve ever seen.

This is a massive victory for sanity and the single biggest boycott win of our lifetime.

My reaction and strategy going forward

I… pic.twitter.com/AIRgcaoDyp

— Robby Starbuck (@robbystarbuck) June 28, 2024

A slew of mega-corporations and universities have already reversed course in their leftist activism as the anti-DEI tide rises.

Consulting firm Farient Advisors told Bloomberg that more than 50 companies, including Chipotle Mexican Grill, Johnson & Johnson, Best Buy, and many others, have “removed or de-emphasized DEI when setting executive pay.” 

Earlier this year, we explained, “Both the DEI and ESG gravy trains on Wall Street are finally coming to an unceremonious end.” 

And more recently pointed out, “DEI was doomed to fail, and corporations have been quickly scrambling to abandon mindless and profitless diversity programs with Marxist roots.” 

Data from AlphaSense shows “DEI” mentions on earnings calls collapsed in recent quarters. 

In January, Johnny Taylor, president of the Society for Human Resource Management, told Axios that corporate executives are fed up with DEI. 

“The backlash is real. And I mean, in ways that I’ve actually never seen it before,” Taylor said, adding, “CEOs are literally putting the brakes on this DE&I work that was running strong” since George Floyd’s murder in early 2020. And why is that? The answer is here… 

Boeing has figured out this the hard way… 

Returning to Starbuck’s anti-DEI campaign, here’s what X users are saying about Tractor Supply’s about-face:

This is what boycott panic smells like

— End Wokeness (@EndWokeness) June 27, 2024

Wow, Tractor Supply realizes its whole customer base are conservatives and they have completely abandoned DEI. I love it.

— RedWave Press (@RedWave_Press) June 27, 2024

Go Woke Go Broke! Soon every company will learn! Ask a farmer how many sexes are there! Or try milking a bull

— Valentina Gomez (@ValentinaForSOS) June 27, 2024

Wow. Incredible. All thanks to @robbystarbuck and free speech on X. We will get rid of DEI one company at a time

— Libs of TikTok (@libsoftiktok) June 27, 2024

Well done. Thank you, Tractor Supply. I will be doing more business with you in the future.

— Christopher F. Rufo (@realchrisrufo) June 27, 2024

These are the images the world has been waiting for (with the exception of all Neocons, Liberal interventionists, natsec hawks, and Killary types…). “Free at last,” WikiLeaks said in a post on X, upon Julian Assange emerging rom his plane after landing in the Australian capital of Canberra.

Via WikiLeaks

Assange raised his fist on the tarmac, and lovingly embraced his wife Stella and his children and family. His guilty plea arrangement with the United States was a success. 

During the Wednesday morning stopover and court appearance in a US district court in Saipan, the 52-year old Assange formally pleaded guilty to obtaining and publishing US military secrets.

REUNITED: Julian Assange embraces his wife @Stella_Assange for the first time as a free man pic.twitter.com/yfgLYa3yWt

— Going Underground (@GUnderground_TV) June 26, 2024

One of Assange’s lawyers, Jennifer Robinson, said after the hearing that the whole ordeal “sets a dangerous precedent that should be a concern to journalists everywhere.”

During the hearing he appeared emotional and there were moments of humor and laughter in interaction with the judge and with the court, according to The Guardian. For example, when the judge questioned whether satisfied with the plea conditions, Assange responded: “It might depend on the outcome.” This immediately drew some laughter in the courtroom.

Chief Judge Ramona Manglona said at the start: “Not many people recognize we are part of the United States, but that is true.” By the end she pronounced: “It appears this case ends with me” and followed with “I hope there will be some peace restored.”

The moment he walked out of the courtroom a free man:

Julian Assange Free At Last!!! pic.twitter.com/Vpzcxr6lbi

— Stella Assange #FreeAssangeNOW (@Stella_Assange) June 26, 2024

Crucially, the judge said something which marks a significant blow to Assange’s and WikiLeaks’ detractors, who have long maintained that the leaks – particularly the Iraq and Afghan war logs – put intelligence officers and foreign assets in danger and may have gotten some killed.

Manglona explained that key to the deal for his freedom was that he already served years in a notorious and harsh UK prison, but also that no actual physical harm was actually caused due to Assange’s actions.

“You stand before me to be sentenced in this criminal action,” the judge said. “I would note the following: Timing matters. If this case was brought before me some time near 2012, without the benefit of what I know now, that you served a period of imprisonment… in apparently one of the harshest facilities in the United Kingdom.”

With his attorney after being pronounced by the US federal judge a free man…

Just a moment – pic.twitter.com/5UDPsGcIYG

— WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) June 26, 2024

Below: Returning home to Australia, where Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s role in securing his freedom was key. WikiLeaks and Assange’s family have thanked the Australian PM.

The Australian parliament had also begun publicly lobbying for Assange’s freedom starting months ago, and this was also essential in building pressure with the Biden administration.

With attorney Jen Robinson on the plane ride home.

“There’s another significant fact – the government has indicated there is no personal victim here. That tells me the dissemination of this information did not result in any known physical injury,” the judge continued.

“These two facts are very relevant. I would say if this was still unknown and closer to [2012] I would not be so inclined to accept this plea agreement before me,” Manglona added. “But it’s the year 2024.”

Someone please ask this walking embodiment of mediocrity:

1) How *specifically* did WL endanger US national security?

2) If Assange should be imprisoned for life for publishing these docs, why shouldn’t the NYT and Guardian which partnered with him?https://t.co/eKbDD5zued

— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) June 25, 2024

Former intelligence officials and national security pundits have been livid and disappointed over the plea deal, claiming Assange’s leaks got people killed and harmed US operations abroad.

This cretin worked for CIA so obviously her tweet about Assange is full of lies.

But what sickens me worse is her cowardice.

The NYT, Guardian, etc. partnered with WL to publish the same classified docs.

But she’ll never call for them to be imprisoned because they have power: https://t.co/xXH7PaSQ3y

— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) June 25, 2024

“I can’t stop crying,” his wife, Stella, wrote on X soon after.

Importantly, as a condition of the plea WikiLeaks is required to destroy information pertaining to US state secrets that was provided to Assange and his team. While the WikiLeaks site is a large repository of world-wide leaks on various governments, it appears that sections devoted to classified US documents have now been removed.

NEW: All 19,252 DNC emails & 8,034 documents have been scrubbed from the Wikileaks website.

User attempts to access files results in “Internal Server Error.”

Hillary Clinton emails are still available online.

The DNC emails removal follows upon the historic Assange plea deal. pic.twitter.com/VR6OJJsWVk

— Kyle Becker (@kylenabecker) June 26, 2024

Upon Assange’s celebratory landing in Australia, his wife Stella said in a press conference that he “just arrived in Australia after being in a high-security prison for over five years and [on] a 72-hour flight.”

She said it would be “premature” for Julian to address the press and that he “has to recover”. She then declared: “The fact is that Julian will always defend human rights, will always defend victims – that’s just part of who he is.”

“I hope journalists and editors and publishers everywhere realize the danger of the US case against Julian that criminalizes, that has secured a conviction for, newsgathering and publishing information that was true, that the public deserved to know,” she continued in the press conference.

Image source: The Guardian

“That precedent now can and will be used in the future against the rest of the press. So it is in the interest of all of the press to seek for this current state of affairs to change through reform of the Espionage Act,” said Stella Assange. “Through increased press protections, and yes, eventually when the time comes – not today – a pardon.”

In a shocking turn of events, Julian Assange will plead guilty to leaking US national security secrets and return to his native Australia, under a deal with Biden’s DoJ that ends a nearly 15-year battle nightmare for the WikiLeaks founder.

After spending more than a decade holed up and imprisoned in London – mainly to avoid being sent to the US – Assange, 52, is expected to be sentenced to time served (62 months in a Belmarsh prison – a high security facility in South-East London) during a court appearance Wednesday in Saipan, in the US Northern Mariana Islands, avoiding a potentially lengthy sentence in an American prison.

Prosecutors had been in talks with Assange to resolve the 2019 case, The Wall Street Journal reported in March, with one sticking point being Assange’s desire to never set foot in the United States.

To enter a felony plea, defendants generally have to show up in person in court. 

Assange’s team had floated the possibility of pleading guilty to a misdemeanor, the Journal reported, which would mean Assange could enter the plea remotely.

The Justice Department and Assange’s legal team reached a compromise under which Assange wouldn’t have to travel to suburban Virginia, where the original case is filed, and prosecutors could still get a felony plea, the people said.  

As The FT reports, the agreement aims to resolve what has been a remarkable stand-off between the DoJ and Assange, who has become one of the world’s most controversial advocates for government transparency and whose legal troubles have spanned multiple countries. 

The plea deal also offers a neat solution to what was becoming an increasing political headache for the U.S. government. 

Earlier this year, Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said he hoped the U.S. could find a way to conclude the case against Assange, and lawmakers there passed a motion calling for Assange to be allowed to return to his native home. German Chancellor Olaf Scholz has also weighed in, saying that the British courts should not extradite Assange to the U.S. In February, the United Nations special rapporteur on torture, Alice Jill Edwards, said Assange shouldn’t be extradited to the U.S. to face trial, saying he suffered from “depressive disorder” and was at risk of being placed in solitary confinement.

Finally, while this is excellent news for Assange and his family – and journalistic freedom everywhere – we can’t help but wonder if this outstanding result would have occurred were it not for Biden heading into the first debate with Trump with his poll numbers in the toilet…

Who cares! They are; and Julian is free…

Authored by Chris Hedges via Scheerpost.com,

The decision by the High Court in London to grant Julian Assange the right to appeal the order to extradite him to the United States may prove to be a Pyrrhic victory. It does not mean Julian will elude extradition. It does not mean the court has ruled, as it should, that he is a journalist whose only “crime” was providing evidence of war crimes and lies by the U.S. government to the public. It does not mean he will be released from the high-security HMS Belmarsh prison where, as Nils Melzer, the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture, after visiting Julian there, said he was undergoing a “slow-motion execution.”

It does not mean that journalism is any less imperiled. Editors and publishers of  five international media outlets —– The New York Times, the Guardian, Le Monde, El Pais and DER SPIEGEL —– which published stories based on documents released by WikiLeaks, have urged that the U.S. charges be dropped and Julian be released. None of these media executives were charged with espionage. It does not dismiss the ludicrous ploy by the U.S. government to extradite an Australian citizen whose publication is not based in the U.S. and charge him under the Espionage Act. It continues the long Dickensian farce that mocks the most basic concepts of due process.

This ruling is based on the grounds that the U.S. government did not offer sufficient assurances that Julian would be granted the same First Amendment protections afforded to a U.S. citizen, should he stand trial. The appeal process is one more legal hurdle in the persecution of a journalist who should not only be free, but feted and honored as the most courageous of our generation.  

Yes. He can file an appeal. But this means another year, perhaps longer, in harsh prison conditions as his physical and psychological health deteriorates. He has spent over five years in HMS Belmarsh without being charged. He spent seven years in the Ecuadorian Embassy because the U.K. and Swedish governments refused to guarantee that he wouldn’t be extradited to the U.S., even though he agreed to return to Sweden to aid a preliminary investigation that was eventually dropped.

The judicial lynching of Julian was never about justice. The plethora of legal irregularities, including the recording of his meetings with attorneys by the Spanish security firm UC Global at the embassy on behalf of the CIA, alone should have seen the case thrown out of court as it eviscerates attorney-client privilege.

The U.S. has charged Julian with 17 acts under the Espionage Act and one count of computer misuse, for an alleged conspiracy to take possession of and then publish national defense information. If found guilty on all of these charges he faces 175 years in a U.S. prison.

The extradition request is based on the 2010 release by WikiLeaks of the Iraq and Afghanistan war logs — hundreds of thousands of classified documents, leaked to the site by Chelsea Manning, then an Army intelligence analyst, which exposed numerous U.S. war crimes including video images of the gunning down of two Reuters journalists and 10 other unarmed civilians in the Collateral Murder video, the routine torture of Iraqi prisoners, the covering up of thousands of civilian deaths and the killing of nearly 700 civilians that had approached too closely to U.S. checkpoints.

In February, lawyers for Julian submitted nine separate grounds for a possible appeal. 

A two-day hearing in March, which I attended, was Julian’s last chance to request an appeal of the extradition decision made in 2022 by the then British home secretary, Priti Patel, and of many of the rulings of District Judge Baraitser in 2021. 

The two High Court judges, Dame Victoria Sharp and Justice Jeremy Johnson, in March rejected most of Julian’s grounds of appeal. These included his lawyers’ contention that the UK-US extradition treaty bars extradition for political offenses; that the extradition request was made for the purpose of prosecuting him for his political opinions; that extradition would amount to retroactive application of the law — because it was not foreseeable that a century-old espionage law would be used against a foreign publisher; and that he would not receive a fair trial in the Eastern District of Virginia. The judges also refused to hear new evidence that the CIA plotted to kidnap and assassinate Julian, concluding — both perversely and incorrectly — that the CIA only considered these options because they believed Julian was planning to flee to Russia.

But the two judges determined Monday that it is “arguable” that a U.S. court might not grant Julian protection under the First Amendment, violating his rights to free speech as enshrined in the European Convention on Human Rights.

The judges in March asked the U.S. to provide written assurances that Julian would be protected under the First Amendment and that he would be exempt from a death penalty verdict. The U.S. assured the court that Julian would not be subjected to the death penalty, which Julian’s lawyers ultimately accepted. But the Department of Justice was unable to provide an assurance that Julian could mount a First Amendment defense in a U.S. court. Such a decision is made in a U.S. federal court, their lawyers explained. 

Assistant U.S. Attorney Gordon Kromberg, who is prosecuting Julian, has argued that only U.S. citizens are guaranteed First Amendment rights in U.S. courts. Kromberg has stated that what Julian published was “not in the public interest” and that the U.S. was not seeking his extradition on political grounds.

Free speech is a key issue. If Julian is granted First Amendment rights in a U.S. court it will be very difficult for the U.S. to build a criminal case against him, since other news organizations, including The New York Times and The Guardian, published the material he released. 

The extradition request is based on the contention that Julian is not a journalist and not protected under the First Amendment.

Julian’s attorneys and those representing the U.S. government have until May 24 to submit a draft order, which will determine when the appeal will be heard. 

Julian committed the empire’s greatest sin — he exposed it as a criminal enterprise. He documented its lies, routine violation of human rights, wanton killing of innocent civilians, rampant corruption and war crimes. Republican or Democrat, Conservative or Labour, Trump or Biden — it does not matter. Those who manage the empire use the same dirty playbook.

The publication of classified documents is not a crime in the United States, but if Julian is extradited and convicted, it will become one. 

Julian is in precarious physical and psychological health. His physical and psychological deterioration has resulted in a minor stroke, hallucinations and depression. He takes antidepressant medication and the antipsychotic quetiapine. He has been observed pacing his cell until he collapses, punching himself in the face and banging his head against the wall. He has spent weeks in the medical wing of Belmarsh, nicknamed “hell wing.” Prison authorities found “half of a razor blade” hidden under his socks. He has repeatedly called the suicide hotline run by the Samaritans because he thought about killing himself “hundreds of times a day.” 

These slow-motion executioners have not yet completed their work. Toussaint L’Ouverture, who led the Haitian independence movement, the only successful slave revolt in human history, was physically destroyed in the same manner. He was locked by the French in an unheated and cramped prison cell and left to die of exhaustion, malnutrition, apoplexy, pneumonia and probably tuberculosis. 

Prolonged imprisonment, which the granting of this appeal perpetuates, is the point. The 12 years Julian has been detained — seven in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London and over five in high-security Belmarsh Prison — have been accompanied by a lack of sunlight and exercise, as well as unrelenting threats, pressure, prolonged isolation, anxiety and constant stress. The goal is to destroy him.

We must free Julian. We must keep him out of the hands of the U.S. government. Given all he did for us, we owe him an unrelenting fight. 

If there is no freedom of speech for Julian, there will be no freedom of speech for us.

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NOTE TO SCHEERPOST READERS FROM CHRIS HEDGES: There is now no way left for me to continue to write a weekly column for ScheerPost and produce my weekly television show without your help. The walls are closing in, with startling rapidity, on independent journalism, with the elites, including the Democratic Party elites, clamoring for more and more censorship. Bob Scheer, who runs ScheerPost on a shoestring budget, and I will not waver in our commitment to independent and honest journalism, and we will never put ScheerPost behind a paywall, charge a subscription for it, sell your data or accept advertising. Please, if you can, sign up at chrishedges.substack.com so I can continue to post my now weekly Monday column on ScheerPost and produce my weekly television show, The Chris Hedges Report.

Authored by Michael Snyder via The End of The American Dream,

Health officials are issuing very ominous warnings about the potential for an H5N1 pandemic among humans at the same time that the WHO is preparing for a vote on the global pandemic treaty at the 77th World Health Assembly at the end of this month.  The global pandemic treaty will give the World Health Organization far more authority than it had during the last pandemic, and a lot of people are deeply concerned about how that power will be used during the next major health crisis.  As you will see below, two more human cases of the bird flu have just been confirmed.  If the bird flu mutates into a form that can spread easily from human to human, that will create an enormous amount of fear, and the death toll could potentially be catastrophic.  In such an environment, what sort of extreme measures would the World Health Organization decide to institute?

In recent weeks, negotiators have been feverishly working to finalize the global pandemic treaty.  The following comes directly from the official WHO website…

Governments of the world today agreed to continue working on a proposed pandemic agreement, and to further refine the draft, ahead of the Seventy-seventh World Health Assembly that starts 27 May 2024.

Governments meeting at the World Health Organization headquarters in Geneva agreed to resume hybrid and in-person discussions over coming weeks to advance work on critical issues, including around a proposed new global system for pathogen access and benefits sharing (i.e. life-saving vaccines, treatments and diagnostics); pandemic prevention and One Health; and the financial coordination needed to scale up countries’ capacities to prepare for and respond to pandemics.

Here in the United States, the mainstream media has been strangely quiet about this treaty, but it is a really big deal.

Negotiations have been taking place for the last two years, and the plan is to submit the final draft for a vote at the World Health Assembly at the end of this month…

The Member State-led Intergovernmental Negotiating Body (INB) was established over two years ago to take this effort forward. The Bureau of the INB, which is guiding the process, will submit its outcome for consideration at the World Health Assembly.

INB Bureau Co-Chair Dr Precious Matsoso, from South Africa, said progress had been made during this latest round of discussions on a wide range of issues contained in the draft agreement.

“We are witnessing history play out before our eyes during this process, with the coming together of all countries to decide a binding pact to protect all citizens of the world,” said Ms Matsoso. “This is not a simple exercise. This is the first ever process to develop a proposed agreement on pandemic prevention, preparedness and response. Getting this done means getting it right, and the INB Bureau is committed to help finalize a meaningful, lasting agreement.”

The 77th World Health Assembly will be held in Geneva, Switzerland from May 27th to June 1st.

Member nations will cast their votes on the final draft of the global pandemic treaty, and it is fully expected to pass.

We have been told that the global pandemic treaty has been “watered down”, but in reality all that has really changed is that some language in the treaty has been made more vague.

If this treaty passes, when the next pandemic erupts the WHO will be running the show, and most people in the general population do not realize this.

And the next pandemic may be a lot closer than most of us think.

On Wednesday, the CDC announced that there has been another confirmed human case of the bird flu in the United States…

The U.S. has documented the second case of bird flu in 2024, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced Wednesday.

Health officials identified the avian influenza case in a Michigan dairy farm worker. This is the second time a case has developed in a person working with dairy cows. The virus appears to have developed under similar circumstances as it did earlier this year for a farm worker at a dairy in Texas.

A nasal swab for the infected person tested negative for influenza, however, an eye swab from the patient tested positive for bird flu, indicating an eye infection, the CDC said in a news release.

So far, the two individuals in the U.S. that have been infected in 2024 have both been dairy workers.

There may be many more dairy workers that have been infected, but at this stage a lot of those that work in the industry are very reluctant to get tested…

Farmers have been reluctant to allow federal health officials onto their land to test potentially infected cattle amid uncertainty about how their businesses would be impacted.

Farmworkers have also been reluctant to participate in screening, and experts said it’s likely due to a mix of fears over job loss, immigration status, language barriers and general distrust in public health systems.

Meanwhile, we just learned that H5N1 is responsible for the deaths of four more cats…

Four more cats have died of H5N1 bird flu in the United States, including two pets in South Dakota with no links to poultry or dairy cows, according to state and federal officials. At least 14 cats have recently died of bird flu.

Of the newly reported cases, two were domestic cats which died at a property in Campbell County in South Dakota, according to a state official and the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA).

Beth Thompson, the state’s veterinarian, said there was no livestock on the property where the pets died. “No other details regarding how the cats were infected are known at this time,” Thompson told BNO News.

This is not good.

If cats start getting sick and dying on a widespread basis, it is probably just a matter of time before the same thing starts happening among humans.

We don’t know all of the details about these latest cat deaths, but it was being reported that cats that previously died from H5N1 in Texas experienced “brain hemorrhaging” and “blindness”.

Does H5N1 have the potential to do that same sort of damage to humans?

We need an answer to that question, because more human cases are popping up all the time.

In fact, there has now been a confirmed human case in Australia…

A child has been confirmed as the first case of H5N1 bird flu in Australia.

The child contracted the avian influenza A infection while in India and fell ill in March this year, according to Victorian health officials.

The announcement came hours after bird flu was detected on a farm in Victoria.

Since 2003, more than 50 percent of the humans that have tested positive for H5N1 have died.

Can you imagine the fear that will erupt if millions of people suddenly get infected?

Global pestilences will play a major role in the era of great chaos that is coming.

Just think about the panic that we witnessed during 2020, 2021 and 2022.

If the next pandemic has a far higher death rate, the panic that we will see will be so much worse, and that is really bad news for all of us.

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Michael’s new book entitled “Chaos” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com, and you can subscribe to his Substack newsletter at michaeltsnyder.substack.com.

Statista’s Consumer Insights survey has been tracking which issues adults in the United States consider to be the most important in the country right now, and how they have shifted over time.

The following chart, via Statista’s Anna Fleck, provides just a snapshot of these, listing the eight most cited concerns out of a possible 20 options, in the most recent survey wave as well as in the survey wave at the start of the pandemic.

You will find more infographics at Statista

Where health and social security came first in the earlier iteration, likely in reference to Covid, it had dropped by 6 percentage points by 2023/24. In the meantime, inflation and the cost of living has risen from third position to first position (+13 p.p).

Other notable changes include a drop in the share of people citing immigration in the latest wave and an increase in the share of people picking crime. Six of the eight most recent most pressing issues are social, with the sole environmental topic of climate change having narrowly dropped off the list, coming in 10th position with 30 percent of respondents picking it, following unemployment with 31 percent.

As this chart shows, poverty and housing are now on the minds of more U.S. adults, at least more imminently, than before. Where poverty had previously tied in 9th position with education in 2019/20 with a 32 percent share of respondents picking it as one the most important issues facing the country right now, the share rose to 37 percent in the latest survey wave. Similarly, where housing had been in rank 11 with 22 percent, it has now risen to position 6, with 36 percent of respondents selecting the option.